Looking for Jerry Lewis

Since last we met, I suffered a bladder infection. I know, I know, TMI. The point being, one symptom of said condition is a marked tendency toward sociopathic behavior. At least, that's what I told my husband.

"Why are you hanging from the ceiling fan?" he asked beleagueredly a fortnight ago.

"I've got a UTI!" I shrieked, wiping the foam from my mouth with my free hand. "Rev this thing up a few notches while you're at it! Toss me that decanter!"

Why that man is still in the building is one of Life's Great Mysteries.

Another is teenage girls.

I was driving home from the video store with just such a creature the other evening when, out of the blue, I felt a sudden maternal urge. Not to be mistaken for that other urge, associated with the above-mentioned malady, but let's not go there. I glanced at the two DVDs on the creature's lap and inquired ever so maternally,

"What movies did you get?"

"Thinking hurts," the creature sighed, leaning her lovely head against the passenger window, to which I replied, in all earnestness,

"And what's the other movie?"

I'm nothing if not earnest. I'm congenitally earnest. I could be the poster child for earnestness. My predisposition toward the state of being earnest is another of Life's Great Mysteries.

Yet another is Axel, the new preschool student.

* * *

Axel is not his real name. I never use real names. Not even in real life, whatever that is. I just make shit up.

Axel came to class for the first time on Thursday. Let it be noted that our little cult has been going full tilt boogie since September, but never mind that, Axel had certain pressing issues which kept him from enlisting. My guess is that his long-suffering mother finally threw up her hands, threw in the towel, threw on the pull-ups and pronounced Axel potty-trained, end of story.

Except, Dear Reader, this is a chapter book, the story never ends.

So there we are, unsuspecting innocents going about the usual mayhem of another attempt at learning, when Axel charges into our classroom all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and takes over. He eschews the ubiquitous train table, around which, as always, the boys are hunkered, and instead heads straight for the costume box, a.k.a., Girl Land, where he pushes past Flicka, Ricka and Dicka and lunges headlong into the froth, emerging in less than a heartbeat in tutu, tiara, Cinderella slippers and blue feather boa.

Did I mention pink star-shaped sunglasses bedecked with purple rhinestones?

"Just don't let his father see him," sighs Axel's long-suffering mother, and she picks up the baby carrier holding her latest effort at procreation and heads out the door, leaving us one and all, large and small, agape and agog.

Gaping and gogging aside, I regain my composure and set about the task of reclaiming the airspace, keeping an eagle eye on the new recruit, who himself eventually discards the Cinderella heels (I must say he has more control over them than the girls do), though to make up for this fashion faux pas, adds several necklaces, a green velvet clutch bag and a large rhinestone ring.

Axel's MO is to prance about the room and hit the boys with the clutch bag, ala Ruth Buzzi on "Laugh-In", then prance over to the big alphabet rug and swap jewelry with the girls, who are having a picnic. The boys appear nonplussed at these antics, they couldn't care less, and once I put the kibosh on clutch-bag-as-weapon ("This is a cigarette-and-gun-free preschool!"), they go about their business at train table and block bin, seemingly oblivious to one of their ilk lurking nearby in tutu and tiara.

Not so the girls. The girls are incredulous. Indignant. Incensed.

"He's wearing a skirt!"

"He's wearing high heels!"

"He's wearing the magic ruby princess ring!"

The girls flock around me and shake their heads and roll their eyes, regaling me with complaints about this usurper as if he were stealing their very souls out from under them, to which their long-suffering mentor extraordinaire responds by shrugging her shoulders and reminding them lamely that we're all friends here, we have to learn to share, blah blah blah, and so they shake their heads and roll their eyes at me and return reluctantly to the fray, where their new fancy friend has continued prancing merrily about in their absence.

* * *

And it's true, Dear Reader, and I use this word cautiously but earnestly. Did I mention how earnest I am? There is no other way to describe how Axel moved: he pranced. Like a chipmunk. Like a pony. Like a dancer. Like a...prancer. You had to be there. And you weren't.

I, however, was, and returning to the Bat Cave later that evening, pour myself a flagon of mead and regale my long-suffering husband with The Story of My Day, in all its rumorous detail, leaving no prance behind nor rhinestone unturned, to which my husband beleagueredly replies,

"The kid's three for crissakes!"

"He could be a poster child!" I say. "You had to be there!"

My husband sighs deeply and thanks the Cosmic Oneness that he was in fact not there, and glances longingly at the Florida golf brochure at his elbow, weighing the pros and cons of pulling a Get Out of Jail Free card. Meanwhile I draw deeply from the flagon of mead and thank my lucky stars I remembered to stop by the liquor store, and glance longingly at the shadowy blades circling steadily overhead, weighing the pros and cons of pulling a Charlie Sheen.

And it's true, Dear Reader. That we both, in our separate but equal gravitational fields, continue to orbit the same sun, is yet one more addition to that ever-evolving list of Life's Great Mysteries. Did I mention Sunday is our 25th wedding anniversary? We could be poster children.